


The Trick is Slick Code

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bond knows how to use a computer, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Food, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not SPECTRE Compliant, Wooing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 14:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11060562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: Bond decides to woo Q in a way that Q will surely understand--with technology! Meanwhile, Q strongly suspects that Bond just wants a new Aston or something.





	1. The mobile app

**Author's Note:**

> Last August, @coffeeisagoodstart won a 007 Fest drawing for a ficlet by me, and gave me the prompt "Bond being a decent hacker/pretty good at computers." What started as a ficlet turned into the longest thing I've ever written. <.<
> 
> A thousand apologies for the super late fill, coffeeisagoodstart! I hope you like your fic <333
> 
> And a thousand thank-yous to Tokyo_the_Glaive for being an amazing beta! <333
> 
> If all goes according to plan, this fic should update on a weekly basis.

Q woke to find Mephistopheles and Beethoven curled up next to him instead of in their usual places—sleeping, he realized belatedly, in what must have been Bond’s warm spot. 

Of course Bond had snuck off; he’d got what he’d come for, which hadn’t been a potentially awkward breakfast with his coworker. Oh, well. Not like Q had expected anything different. 

He yawned and stretched, enjoying the lingering aches. Oh yes, Bond might have spirited himself away, but last night had definitely happened. He took a moment to admire the red love bites trailing down his chest to his thighs. He’d have to check the mirror to see if there were any on his arse. 

Q reached for his glasses only to freeze mid-motion. His laptop, which he kept on his bedside table, was open. 

_Good morning, beautiful man_ , a message on the login screen read, plain black print in a small grey window. 

_Shit shit shit_ tapped its way down his spine in dendritic Morse code. His only comfort was that this was his home laptop, and Bond couldn’t have gained any officially classified information from it. No prototype blueprints, no security codes to gain access to those prototypes—certainly not anything about the new Aston, which was probably what Bond had been looking for. The question was, had the fucking been Bond’s primary intention and the Aston the bonus, or the other way around?

Christ. This was what he got for sleeping with a 00. Q wiped one hand over his face and with his other he typed his password in as usual. Best to get on with the damage control. 

His old password worked. Perhaps a sign of Bond’s good intentions? Or just a sign that Bond was smart enough to realize that Q would hang him by his lovely big bollocks if Bond attempted to lock Q out of his own computer. Particularly _this_ computer, a black mongrel that he’d had for years now which overheated at the first sign of anything complicated but made a perfectly adequate vehicle for leisure activities. 

There were terrible limericks on this computer. Ridiculous Rube-Goldberg designs. Scathing rants against people he’d had to be polite to during the day instead of telling them what massively ignorant pricks they were (including more than one against Bond, that _car-destroying fucker_ ). The movies he watched when happy and sad and lonely. Scanned letters and copied emails from former family, friends, mentors, and lovers—sentimental, embarrassing products from a time before he’d been Q. 

Bond’s tongue in Q’s arse had been less invasive. 

At least, Q thought so until he ran a systems check and discovered that Bond had only installed the log-in greeting program before dutifully logging himself back out. 

Q frowned, double-checked, and found the same result. Strange. If he’d been on Bond’s computer, he might’ve—well, perhaps, perhaps not. He could dig into Bond’s computer any time he liked, after all, but he hadn’t done it yet. 

He checked the greeting program for anything untoward, but all he found was that Bond (or whoever Bond had hired to make it) had programmed the thing to take into account the time of day (no ‘good morning’s at night) and to alternate between seven different endearments. 

What on Earth was Bond’s game? Was this just a metaphorical tweak of Q’s nose? 

Q let the program stay. Deleting it seemed like letting Bond win, in a way. Nothing wrong with being called ‘beautiful man’—he _was_ beautiful, even if Bond might only be saying it for manipulative reasons. Nothing wrong with having a reminder of Bond’s talented tongue, either (and his cock, his hands, his shoulders, his...well, regardless of the aftermath, it had been a _very_ good night). 

Q did change his password, however. Bond wouldn’t travel the same way twice. 

***

Bond’s equipment for his next mission consisted of a gun and a radio. Not the gorgeous sniper rifle, not the signal flare pen (technically not exploding), and definitely not the kitted-out Aston. Bond could take it as vengeance for the laptop invasion or just a signal that Q wouldn’t be trading orgasms for special treatment; both were true. 

Instead of grousing, however, Bond said, “Efficient as always, Q,” in a way that seemed to be, perhaps, genuinely appreciative. He wasn’t mockingly referencing their time together, in any case; there was no way their coupling could have been labelled ‘efficient.’ Bond also hip-checked him with apparent fondness on his way out, a playful and oddly platonic bump to the rump that couldn’t possibly be misconstrued as aggressive. 

Q squinted after him, suspicious. Did everyone Bond slept with end up on the receiving end of this strange hip-bumping camaraderie, or what? 

Five minutes later, which turned out to be about one minute after Bond sped away in a taxi to the airport, Q reached into his trouser pocket for his personal mobile and encountered empty space. 

Bond had lifted his mobile. His _mobile_. Q ascertained Bond’s location and was on the verge of rushing to Heathrow to bawl him out when Kris, one of his favorite staff members, rushed up and thrust the phone at him. 

“He said to give this to you,” they said, burning questions in their eyes. 

“Ah, thank you. Just running some tests,” Q assured them. It was, like most of his lies, deliberately terrible. Putting the word out that Bond had started stealing from him wouldn’t exactly be politic; better to let Kris draw their own, more benign conclusions. 

As expected, Kris relaxed. “Of course, sir,” they said, and winked. “I’ll leave you to it.” Hopefully they were assuming Bond had taken a lewd selfie to help keep Q warm throughout his absence or something equally horrific—but manageable—like that. A few of Q’s staff would be all too happy to steal anything and everything Bond owned in misguided vengeance if they thought otherwise, and that had the potential to turn into a field agent versus technical staff conflict, which was a headache Q didn’t need. 

Bond himself, in fact, was a headache Q didn’t need. If only he weren’t so irritatingly competent and sexy when he wasn’t causing trouble (and sometimes when he was, which was even worse). 

Q sequestered himself in his office to check his phone. Although it was his personal mobile rather than his work one, it was still equipped for him to respond to an official emergency from wherever he was at the time. If Bond had managed to get his grubby hands into it then he could have delved into Six’s system looking for weaknesses to exploit, for passcodes to information or to prototypes he didn’t need. Was this Bond’s second go at gaining access to the Aston, his search of Q’s laptop having been unfruitful? Hmm. 

Bond was no Silva, but after the Skyfall debacle Q was ready to shred anyone who tried to infiltrate his Branch into so much kitty kibble. He plugged his phone into an isolated computer so he could run security scans on it. Whatever Bond had compromised or stolen in the few minutes before he’d dumped the mobile onto Kris, he would find it. He typed in the password. 

As the lock screen disappeared, Bond’s voice purred from the mobile’s speaker: “Good afternoon, sweetheart.” Like honey smeared over an arsehole. Only pleasant if you really, really liked the arsehole in question. And Q was smiling now. Fuck. 

Meanwhile, Bond’s face looked back at him, amusement wrinkling the corners of his eyes: he actually _had_ taken a selfie and made it Q’s wallpaper. 

A diagnostic scan and a flip through his home screens showed that Bond had downloaded a greeting app similar to the one on his home laptop, this one with sound bites included. Thankfully, the app creator (Bond? Surely not) had offered a speech-to-text mode as well as the audio one. 

After putting his old wallpaper back (a photo of Messier 81, his favorite galaxy), Q enabled the text option on the app. He couldn’t picture Bond purring aloud at him when he opened his phone in his next meeting. Or rather, he could, and the picture was as disastrous as everything Bond had a hand in. 

The only other change Bond had made was to add a to-do list in his mobile’s notes: 

_To-do:_

_Watch an episode of Wheeler Dealers. You’ll like it_

_Think of me and have a nice wank; will be thinking of you and doing same_

_Remember to rest occasionally_

_Dinner at La Conche 8pm 29 Sept_

_Me_

Q drummed his fingers on his leg. If Bond thought Q was going to roll over into a swoon just because the infamous 007 wanted a second go, he had another thing coming. 

However, that didn’t mean Q couldn’t take what he could get. 

Q changed his password (again). And on his way home, he detoured to Bond’s flat, which was full of half-unpacked boxes and piles of books, heavy tomes of historical nonfiction mixed in with bestselling action, mystery, and suspense paperbacks. How could someone in Bond’s line of work possibly enjoy reading something called _The Bone Collector_? And go from that to the comparatively sedate Miss Marple? 

No matter; Bond’s taste in books was probably a mystery which, like Bond’s other private facets, was destined to remain unsolved—at least by Q. 

Q left his retaliation on a yellow Post-It Note stuck to the monitor of Bond’s surprisingly modern PC. It read: 

_To-do:_

_Read a Rex Stout novel. You’ll like it_

_Think of me and return your equipment_

_Remember to check into Medical_

_Lunch with me (details TBA)_

_Enjoy being crossed off a list_


	2. The Kindle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond asks Q on a date; Q decides that whatever the catch is, it's a problem for future-him.

“Good evening, dear,” Bond’s voice said, breaking the silence in Q’s bedroom. “Time for an update.” Q, his knees pulled up so Mephistopheles could cuddle underneath the sheet draped over his legs, shot a wary look at the mobile on his side table and picked it up, letting the Rex Stout book he'd been half-heartedly rereading fall onto the mattress next to him. 

Sure enough, the mobile showed an update notification for TellYouLater, Bond’s app. A little investigation revealed that the app’s update notifications, unlike its regular greetings, didn’t come with a text-only option. Pray God that all updates came at 23:00, with no witnesses but the cats. 

Memories of Silva’s hack swarmed in his mind, but Bond wasn’t Silva, not by a long shot. Q closed his eyes, took a deep breath and a leap of faith, and pressed the ‘download update’ button. 

Luckily, when he opened his eyes again he wasn’t confronted with a debilitating virus or inconvenient prank. Instead, the usual, “Good evening, sugar plum” text came up, and then a new audio message played: 

“As usual, reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Bond said, followed by a hacking laugh. 

A few hours before the update, Q had received reports of an explosion in Manila and Bond’s subcutaneous tracker had gone inactive. Q hadn’t been worried. At all. Really. Bond had a long record of causing explosions and a non-existent record of dying in them. 

But Bond had never so much as sent him a postcard from the field. Ever. Now they’d shagged once, with tentative plans to make it a double, and Bond was sending status updates straight to his mobile? 

A dark current of unease ran through Q. He’d hypothesized that Bond wanted something more than a night together and this confirmed it. But was it as simple as Bond wanting a car or a gadget? What else could be motivating this behavior? 

That Bond was after Q’s tech was a definite possibility. There was a nearly-finished Aston Martin in the Q Branch garage and Q still hadn’t issued Bond another car. Perhaps the _Wheeler Dealers_ program that Bond had recommended, which was about repairing classic automobiles and fairly good, was a hint in that direction? 

Or perhaps Q was overthinking things, and this was a case of wanting Q’s arse? Q’s cock? Q flattered himself that he had acquitted himself rather well in bed. But he had already given his body to Bond, and he doubted Bond would go to this sort of effort just for another pull. 

Could Bond be after some sort of classified intel, perhaps pursuing a private lead or vendetta? But surely he knew that Q would support him, that he had only to ask and Q would equip him as needed, official mission or not. 

Or perhaps Bond didn’t know. Could he be trying to secure Q’s loyalty? Did he think that in order to maintain it, Q needed—bribes, or reminders, or whatever Bond thought this was? That Q would ever give him less than his best? 

Q fumed. It would serve Bond right if he deleted the app, ripped up the Post-It on Bond’s PC, and hired a skywriter to fly over the Philippines to tell Bond to go fuck himself. 

On the other hand, Bond _was_ communicating, and if Bond and he were the only ones with a copy of the app, then it was a fairly secret means of communication. If Bond ever used it for anything important after Q deleted it, Q would only end up kicking himself for letting his pique get in the way of his work. 

Also, when he was in the right frame of mind, Bond’s recorded voice could make him blush from the tips of his ears right down to his belly and his interested cock. Q might as well do the smart thing and take advantage of Bond’s scheme before Bond realized this was a game he couldn’t win. 

The app stayed. Q called in to check on Bond’s mission status, and when he was satisfied that Q Branch was doing all that could be done for him, he picked up his book again with renewed focus: Bond was alive and kicking, and when he got back Q would have a bit more fun with him before Bond got bored with the game, and that would be that. 

Once he was done with his book for the night, he set it on the nightstand. Mephistopheles, cued by the sound, wriggled his dark body out from under the sheets and settled down by his feet. Beethoven curled up like an inkblot on the pillow next to him. 

Then Q turned out the lights. He thought back to the taste of Bond on his tongue, to the shudder of Bond’s hard-muscled thighs under his hands; to the electrifying sensation of Bond sucking a love bite onto the sensitive skin of his perineum, pausing to murmur filthy praise before devoting his tongue to Q’s hole; to the low sound of Bond’s laughter in his ear after a particularly well-timed bit of snark, their bodies moving in tandem, hot and close. 

Q gave himself a few strokes. He picked up his mobile again, and he set Bond’s app back to audio. 

“Good evening, beautiful man.” 

***

“Lunch?” Bond asked, sliding his Walther PPK across Q’s desk. The gun was in suspiciously excellent condition. Bond, not so much; he looked as good in his suit as he usually did, but he’d limped into Q Branch, the result of a stab in the thigh that had needed ten stitches. He’d also taken a hit to the kidney that would have him pissing blood for a few days. Not that Q had been digging into Bond’s confidential medical records. 

“Tomorrow,” Q decided. He had the day off and Bond was on post-mission leave. “The Purple Door. Two o’clock. Sound all right?” he asked, naming a Moroccan restaurant he liked. 

Bond smiled. “I’ll look forward to it,” he said, and limped away. 

Huh. He’d actually seemed pleased. Was Q somehow playing right into Bond’s hands? Did Bond think he was going to get laid? Was Bond just that enthusiastic about Moroccan cuisine? 

*** 

Q dressed up the next day. He was going out on a date with Bond, technically or not; if he didn’t dress up then he would look like a sparrow next to a popinjay, and if Q had proved anything over the course of his life, it was that he was certainly not a sparrow. A crow, maybe. Some kind of clever corvid. 

So he put on the tailored trousers that made his hips look like they wanted a pair of hands to hold them, and the green shirt that brought out his eyes, and he took care to keep the wildness of his hair within conventionally attractive limits.

As he sat on the Tube and walked to the restaurant, Q tried futilely to keep his stomach from tightening up. Nothing to worry about here. It was Bond, for Christ’s sake, and Q had handled Bond while Bond was streaked in gore and bulldozing his way through foreign bazaars. He had matched Bond in bed. Bond in Q’s favorite restaurant in one of the sleepier corners of London should be a piece of cake. 

This is nothing, Q thought, rounding the corner. Nothing important and nothing to worry about. 

There was a wooden bench outside of The Purple Door, and Bond had chosen to sit there rather than wait for him inside. Because he lived to thwart Q’s expectations, he was dressed down, in blue jeans and a faded Royal Navy sweatshirt, and he was frowning at an—was that an e-reader in his lap? A Kindle? 

Fuck. Q swallowed and resisted the urge to reel Bond in by his belt loops and kiss him for everyone to see. 

Bond stood when he saw him, tucking his Kindle into the apparently voluminous front pocket of his jeans. “You look beautiful,” he said. 

He’d said it on the mission, too, to the target’s wife. 

“Thank you,” Q said, accepting the compliment. “You look…casual.” Q let his eyes take Bond in, from the worn laces of his blue sneakers to the dangling strings of his sweatshirt, and he focused his mind so that he would always remember the image. 

“We’re not at work,” Bond said simply. “No need to be formal.” 

“Right,” Q said. “Shall we?” He held the door open for Bond and walked in after him. 

After ordering their drinks, Bond, to Q’s surprise, started discussing the menu. He told Q about the tagines he’d had in the dish’s home country, the shape of the clay pot and the taste of real preserved lemons and saffron, the way the meat almost fell apart on your fork. It was probably the most Q had ever heard Bond talk in one go, voluntarily. 

“How did you come to like it?” Bond asked, waving a hand around the restaurant to indicate the entire cuisine. “It’s not exactly like Chinese or Indian, where there’s a take-away on every street corner.” 

“No, it’s not,” Q said, and hesitated, but in the end he couldn’t bring himself to meet Bond’s apparent openness with a lie. “My neighbor was from Meknes,” he said. “I was emancipated quite young, and she liked to look after me. Some nights we shared a pizza or curry, but I always loved it best when she cooked. She made the most amazing couscous.” He waited for Bond to ask about the emancipation, like everyone did when they heard about it. 

Instead Bond said, “My aunt Charmain had guardianship of me for a while before she died of old age; she was technically my great-aunt. She couldn’t cook at all, which is what started me learning the few meals I can put together myself, but she was very active and took me on a lot of long hikes and trips abroad during summer hols.” 

“She sounds like an impressive woman,” Q said, imagining the kind of personality that could keep track of a young Bond, who had surely been a handful even then. Perhaps moreso. 

“Whenever we went to a new city, she’d drop me right in the middle of it,” Bond said, “and she’d tell me that if I found my way back to the hotel before she did, she’d buy me a treat, but if I was late she got to pick all of the next day’s activities, which would undoubtedly include a museum about the history of socks or something, and if I got into any legal trouble then I’d be paying my own bail. A couple of times it came down to both of us in the hotel corridor racing for the door of our room.” 

Q grinned. “And did you win?” he asked. 

“Once,” Bond said. “The first time, she used her walking stick to trip me. The second time, I jumped over it.” He grinned back. 

Their server interrupted the moment, asking if they were ready to order their entrées.

As Q watched Bond ask for the eggplant salad and lamb tagine, he became conscious of a growing warmth towards Bond, for the boy who he’d been and the man he’d become, a warmth he could only call...fondness. 

Shit. Bond was really good. Q had expected Bond to seduce him, but instead Bond had gone in for the emotional kill. What was more, Q had enjoyed it. 

In fact, Q was still enjoying it. 

Bond met his eyes across the table and smiled a little, flicking his eyes toward their server, who was now waiting for Q’s order. 

Q smiled back at Bond. He ordered a lentil salad and beef tagine for himself, and then he pulled out his mobile under cover of the table. On it, he set a reminder for himself for later that night: _Remember that Bond is using you_. 

The conversation turned to the Rex Stout series Q had recommended. Bond was in the middle of reading _The Rubber Band_. He'd picked up the Kindle yesterday at Waterstones and downloaded the first five books in the series, and as Q had expected he was enjoying the 1930s style and the PI narrator’s snarky relationship with his genius boss. 

“A little on the nose, there, isn’t it?” Bond asked, his eyes twinkling. 

“You mean a genius who never leaves his home base and his hardworking agent who does all the footwork?” Q said. “Can’t say I see the resemblance at all. Not like _Wheeler Dealers_ , where there’s the man who does all the mechanical work and the man who keeps bringing in broken cars to be fixed.” 

Bond lit up. “I knew you’d watch it!” he said. “What cars have you seen so far? Did you watch the Aston Martin episode?” 

Q loved it when Bond trusted him; he could admit it. Even now, there was a pathetically pleased glow running all through him. He had been deemed worthy of Bond’s Aunt-Charmain-related secrets. He had proven to Bond that Bond could rely on him, even for something as simple as watching a recommended television program. And what was more, Bond had reciprocated, had actually read a book that Q had recommended! 

As Q replied that _of course_ he had seen the Aston Martin episode, who did Bond think he was talking to, Q clutched close his delight, savoring it. 

Bond would send his bill later, would let him know when it was time for Q to pay the piper. In the meantime, Q might as well listen to the music and like it. 


	3. Email

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q and Bond begin an eloquent email correspondence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: A multi-story building goes up in flames in this chapter; the building is empty except for the bad guys and the depiction is fairly non-graphic. When I wrote this chapter months ago, I thought that setting such a tall building ablaze was almost TOO action-movie, even for Bond fandom; I am horribly saddened to find that with the Grenfell Fire this scenario has become all too real. Please read safely; I understand if this coincidence is too much, particularly so soon after the fire. If you want to skip the fire section, that particular scene begins with "003," and the fire is only vaguely alluded to in the scenes after that.

***

“Good morning, honey,” Bond’s voice said as Q swiped his alarm off and his phone open; he’d forgotten to turn the app’s voice mode off before falling asleep last night.

Q put the Bond app back into text mode, checked the weather, and checked his personal email—his usual morning routine.

One email stood out right away. Q deliberately looked at the others first. 

First came peer review on his latest just-for-fun design; the expert he’d reached out to had offered some useful constructive criticism, which was excellent. Then social media—boring, but necessary for maintaining two of his covers. More interestingly, an up-and-coming whitehat he was mentoring had offered a possible solution to a puzzle Q had set him; not too shabby. Finally, Tanner had sent an email reminding him that pub quiz night was next week but that it wasn’t the all-important MI6 versus MI5 game, for which Q’s attendance was mandatory, and also _P.S. I might have given your personal email to 007 because I thought you’d appreciate not having his dick pics on the company servers_ …

Great, now all of MI6 thought 007 was sending him dick pics. Charming. 

Q squirmed up into a sitting position, obligingly ‘liked’ a few things on social media, frowned thoughtfully at the feedback on his first foray into sex toys, and finally addressed the elephant in the inbox. 

Bond’s email was still there. Sent: 05:30, an hour before Q’s alarm usually woke him. Subject line: _Reservations._

The stupidest parts of Q’s brain started to natter on about how Bond’s email might explain that he had reservations about going on a date with him after all, and then proceed to list those reservations, starting with ‘You’re an executive’ and ending with ‘Wouldn’t want both of us to be bored—once was enough, right?’ 

After all, Bond had walked away after their lunch together without so much as asking for a blowjob in the toilets, a baffling brush-off given that they’d shared a surprisingly lovely meal. He hadn’t behaved any differently on his latest mission, at least; he’d flirted with Q over comms, and he’d also flirted with and fucked anyone he needed intel from. 

Now the dinner was tomorrow, and it seemed likely that a graceful withdrawal was on the books, that Bond would—

—that Bond was the type to courteously forward an OpenTable reminder to his date, Q discovered as he gave in and opened the email. 

Q scrolled down: the email reminded him that he was scheduled for dinner at 8pm at Bond’s fancy French restaurant. A restaurant for which he would have to wear a suit with a starchy collar, a suit that Bond had damn well better go to the effort of removing afterward if Q was going to go to the effort of— 

_C u soon,_ Bond had written at the bottom of the email. 

His first email from Bond, an unprecedented event, and Bond had sent him an OpenTable reminder and _C u soon_. 

_See you tonight, n00b_ , Q replied, and went to the trouble of attaching a selfie featuring his unimpressed face. 

If that selfie also featured some artfully sexy bedhead (after Q had patted down his most ridiculous cowlicks) and a nice little glimpse of his nightshirt dipping to reveal his collarbone—well, Q believed in putting his best foot forward and making sure that dinner reservations were the only kind Bond had. 

*** 

003 protested, “I believe you’ll find that the _goon squad_ is up those stairs—” 

“ _You’ll_ find,” Q said while the sounds of 003 grunting and fighting an assailant made their way through the comms, “that my verbal foot is pulling back through ‘You’re a double-oh, you should be able to knock them down like tenpins’ Land preparatory to kicking your arse and shoving it up Stair-vania, away from the raging inferno that used to be a basement full of valuable intelligence, and towards the roof and the air support that I commandeered as soon as you had the bright idea to infiltrate a suspected opposition base by getting yourself captured.” 

“You know, I always find that the getting captured plan works out for me,” Bond said behind him. 

“It works for 007,” 003 whined, but at least the sounds of 003’s panting had changed—they were on the stairs. 

Q didn’t have to turn around to check Bond’s reaction; the emanating smugness was palpable. At least he didn’t seem too put out by their missed dinner. 

They were both quiet as 003 demonstrated that they did indeed have the ability to tenpin ‘the goon squad,’ particularly because 003 had had the foresight to pick up extra ammunition and the goons in question had been kind enough to array themselves one by one on the stairs. All twenty flights of stairs, because 003’s target hadn’t been able to pretend to be a _small-time_ evil real estate magnate when he was building his malevolent corporate headquarters. 

Luckily, 003 had planned his capture for the late hours of the night and it was currently very early in the morning. The ‘goon squad’ were the only people in residence, and what they didn’t know was that 003 had taken out their boss before they’d even left the basement. 

“You know, they aren’t very fit,” 003 observed over the cracks and groans of the crumbling building. “I think they just stopped on the stair they were on when they got tired of running to the top. Poor buggers.” And a few minutes later, in between hypocritical wheezes, “Right, I’m at the top. I can see a helicopter. Ours?” 

“Yes, and you’ll have to let air support know it’s you,” Q said cheerfully. “I’ve told them that they’re to pick up the silly git who starts jumping around and doing the YMCA.” 

Bond snorted behind him; Q grinned. 

“What about the one who flashes ‘Q sucks’ at them in semaphore?” 003 asked. 

The tower took that moment to let out its loudest creak yet. Q had a visual on the building and there was fire covering most of it. 

“Right! _It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A_...” 003 sang softly, and Q saw their arms flash the letters just before someone in the helicopter threw down a harness. 003 hurried to fasten it, gave the helicopter two thumbs up, and was lifted to safety, the copter clearly moving as quickly as possible given its human passenger. “You know, I’ve always wanted to try thi—oh, fuck—” 003 started spitting “—they never tell you about the bugs, do they?” 

“Enjoy the extra protein while it lasts,” Q said dryly, not envying 003 at all their position at the end of a helicopter’s yo-yo. “They should be winching you into the helicopter shortly.”

“Right,” 003 said. “And Q? I got the drive.” 

“You got the—” Q had resigned himself to a complete loss of intel. 

“Yes,” 003 said. 

“With the—” 

“Yes.” 

“Well done,” Q said faintly. “That almost makes up for torching the place.” 

003 laughed. “I figured I’d see if you were the type to let me burn,” they said. “Instead you made me do the YMCA.” 

“That was for being a spectacular cockblock, not for your unwarranted arson,” Q said. “For the arson, you can take a boat home instead of a plane. Transportation details will be sent to your mobile. Enjoy being surrounded by a very large body of water. Signing off.” 

“And you can enjoy not getting any,” 003 said. “Signing off.” 

Q went through the motions of filing his post-mission report, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as he felt Bond’s eyes lingering on him. 

“A massive cockblock, hmm?” Bond said after a short while. “You know, I don’t know that that’s accurate.” 

“We missed our reservations,” Q pointed out, trying not to visibly perk up at the prospect of Bond (and Bond’s cock) reentering his evening plans. 

“Check your email,” Bond said. 

Q fetched his mobile from his pocket and did so. 

There was another email from Bond, subject line ‘New Reservations.’ 

_Time: whenever you get done pulling 003’s arse out of the literal fire_

_Date: see above_

_Location: the desk in your office_

_Activity: dinner and dessert._

“Acceptable?” Bond asked, one corner of his mouth curving upward. 

It was the end of a long workday and Q thought he was probably beginning to smell, but like hell was he turning down the chance to have Bond over his desk. “A suitable substitute,” he said with a short nod. “Give me five more minutes to finish up here.” 

“I’ll meet you at your office with our Thai food,” Bond said. “Don’t let the _gang massaman_ get cold.” He winked and left. 

Q shamelessly eyed his arse as he went. 

***

Q actually took more than fifteen minutes to get to his office, but Bond seemed to have expected that, because he knocked perfunctorily on Q’s open office door a couple of minutes later before closing it behind himself, a large paper take-away bag in hand. To Q’s surprise, Bond opened the bag and proceeded to lay out real plates and silverware as well as steam-filled plastic tubs of Thai take-away, commandeering a half-empty workbench for the purpose. 

Q’s stomach rumbled as he smelled the fragrant curry and white rice. Tender chicken, sweet onions, chunks of potato, and roasted peanuts all cooked in a spicy, delicious broth—god, it looked like heaven in a take-away container. He’d been living on tea and biscuits for the past few hours, and his lunch before that had been a cheese sandwich Kris had brought him from Pret. 

“Eat something before you fall over,” Bond said, shoving a plate and fork at him. 

Q made a point of loading up his plate, but he stayed standing too, mostly out of spite. Fuck Bond if he thought Q didn’t know his own limits. 

Bond, of course, put together his own plate and then made a point of settling into Q’s office chair, the one with the soft padding, and the excellent lumbar support, and the—

Q only realized he’d made a noise of protest when Bond raised an eyebrow and then patted his lap. “Here,” he said, spreading his thighs. “I’m sure it seats two.”

Q flushed and swallowed. Bond’s thighs were big, well-muscled and solid beneath his gray suit trousers. He might even be able to seat two of Q. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Q said even as he took a step forward, wavering. “The logistics of eating dinner with a grown man in your lap can’t be that appealing.” 

Bond eyed him from the tips of his shoes to the flyaway strands of his hair, and the slow smile that spread on his face told Q that appeal was in the eye of the beholder, and Bond found what he was beholding quite nice. 

“How about here,” Q said, and he slid in front of Bond, watching as Bond’s eyes widened only to narrow when Q hopped up onto his desk, leaving only a few inches between himself and Bond in his desk chair. “I think this should suffice.” 

“For now,” Bond said. He rolled Q’s chair an inch closer, so his knees brushed against Q’s dangling legs, and he started to eat. 

Q followed suit, stuffing his face with Thai curry and rice in an attempt to distract himself from the heat of Bond’s knees pressing against him, comfortable and undemanding but undeniably present. 

After a few minutes of surprisingly un-awkward silence—the food was really very good—Bond started to talk. “I had a lunch date with Moneypenny today, at a Caribbean place near my flat,” he said. “Her treat, since I beat her scores on the range this week,” he added smugly. 

Moneypenny had spent hours by herself on the range after she’d been benched for shooting Bond, and it showed in her marksmanship. It was a point in Bond’s favor that she wasn’t doing all of her shooting alone anymore. Still, Q snorted at the idea of Moneypenny being beaten for long. “Don’t get comfortable; you’ll be buying her lunch again soon enough.” 

“It wouldn’t be a good competition otherwise,” Bond said easily.

“And competition’s your thing?” Q asked, eyebrows raised. 

“Smart people are my thing,” Bond said, smiling meaningfully in Q’s direction. “Competition is just a bonus.” 

Well, if Q had needed a reminder that Bond was probably using him for his genius, there it was. 

Then Bond added, scowling, “Of course, all competitions happen after Ponsonby lets me out of the office. She’s a real stickler for paperwork, you know,” and as Bond might have intended, Q’s grim thoughts were momentarily subdued by the amusing image of Six’s oldest double-oh cowed by the young woman who must be the latest in a long line of double-oh secretaries. 

“Keeps you in line, does she?” Q asked, smirking. 

“She does her best,” Bond said. “And her best is a damn sight better than the last one they gave us; 008 had him accepting sick notes in place of the usual busy work in less than two weeks.” 

Q sighed. “Of course 008 did.” Even when 008 bent the rules, she did it in a semi-official way. The other double-ohs probably hadn’t even bothered with notes. 

“Anyway,” Bond said. “Ponsonby and Moneypenny, and then you, that was my day—pretty good all told, and the best was saved for last. How was yours, 003 aside?” 

“It’s always a joy when one of you doesn’t die,” Q said wryly, acknowledging 003’s close shave. “Other than that, our prototypes are progressing reasonably well—Kann’s rappelling belt malfunctioned unexpectedly today, but better here than in the field. Oh, and 005 reported in, and she hasn’t exploded a single thing she wasn’t told to. A decent day on all fronts, and currently getting even better.” He smiled down at Bond. 

“Do you know, I think we can change that ‘decent’ to ‘fantastic’ if we put our minds to it,” Bond said, looking up at him intently. His knees were warm against Q’s legs and his eyes lingered like a touch. “What do you think?” 

Q swallowed. Apparently ‘dessert’ was going to mean exactly what he’d thought it would mean. Good. “I might have a few ideas,” he said. 

***

Later that night, Q received a third email with a ‘Reservations’ subject line. This one was a new OpenTable reservation, at _La Conche_ again but rescheduled for next month. 

Next month? 

Bond was playing a long game, then. This wasn’t just a dine-and-dash affair like what Bond did on most of his missions, in with the cock and out with whatever intel or object he’d come for. No, Bond was cultivating him. Building credit against a day that hadn’t yet come, for reasons known only to himself. And Q was going to let him. 

Q growled, waking up Beethoven, who was curled up on her pillow next to him; she blinked one eye open before settling into sleep again, as if to say that _some_ cats needed their beauty sleep. In contrast, Mephistopheles, who was lying on Q’s belly, stretched his toes out and started to purr. 

Q scratched Mephistopheles behind the ears, stared at the email, and bit his inner cheek, feeling the twinge like a hook in his mouth. After a moment of indecisiveness, he sent an email of his own, same subject line. 

_Time: whenever the double-oh office is reliably empty_

_Date: September 30th_

_Location: the desk in your office_

_Activity: dinner and dessert._

_Acceptable?_

After all, was there a rule that said Q couldn’t try to hook Bond as much as Bond had hooked him? 

(Impossible. It was impossible. But Q brushed edges with the impossible daily—that was what being an inventor was all about—and even if he never succeeded, perhaps the thrill of trying would balance out the pain of defeat.) 


	4. Blogging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond takes up a new hobby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to @timetospy for the beta, especially her help with the limerick!

“Good morning, gorgeous genius,” Bond said into his new microphone. If he was going to be adding more audio to his app, he might as well sound good doing it. “I was thinking of you this morning—I woke up feeling incredibly well-fucked. So well-fucked that I’m feeling...poetic,” he said, and continued his recording in his clearest speaking voice: 

“There once was a boffin named Q

Who wanted for something to do.

I said, ‘I volunteer,

Though there’s no bed in here,

There’s a desk and I think it will do.’

Bit of revisionism there—you were the one clearing the desk off, as I recall—but that’s what poetic license is for, isn’t it?” 

He saved, played the whole file back, and judged it ready for deployment. Q would probably hit ‘uninstall’ in the blink of an eye if Bond sent him audible sexts in public, so he’d send out the latest app update once he had confirmation that Q was back at his flat. 

He was starting to feel fairly at home with this mobile technology lark. Now if only Q would start to feel at home with him. 

Bond reminded himself again not to rush things. Yes, he could very well be killed on his next mission and die without having achieved domestic as well as sexual intimacy with Q, but that wouldn’t change if he charged in like a bull in an apron and tried to force Q into the handholding and breakfast nook stages. 

After all, there might not even be handholding and breakfast nooks. They might both come to their senses and stop seeing each other. Bond might discover that Q had a (very well-hidden) deal-breaking flaw. Q might inform Bond that any one of his several unhealthy traits were enough to call things off. Their ridiculous amounts of chemistry, mutual respect, loyalty, and (Bond hoped) slowly growing affection for each other might not be enough. 

But Bond wanted more, and with mandatory retirement age only a year away, he was ready to let himself start having it. 

Bond mulled over his strategy. The app was a good start—there was untapped potential there—but it was time for the next step. 

Video games? Maybe. Bond put buying a Nintendo-cube or whatever onto his to-do list—who knew, maybe it would be fun. But anyone could buy a video game console.

What would be really impressive would be if he could make a video game, just like he’d made the mobile app. Something like ‘Agent and Quartermaster,’ where the player (Q) could direct the agent through different espionage activities. Bond could even put in an equipment retrieval bonus and deliberately make it impossible to achieve it on a certain level. 

...Well, he could if he knew the first thing about making video games. Fuck. The video game would have to be a long-term effort; maybe he could do it for some kind of anniversary. 

What else? A gadget of some kind? A model car to replace all the ones he’d crashed? But Q was an engineering genius and building cars, even model ones, wasn’t exactly the same thing as tinkering with Java, a programming language he’d picked up while undercover in a mobile gambling company a few years ago. 

The app worked because it was simple; what if all this other stuff came out looking like a primary schooler’s macaroni art? 

No, he needed a different kind of technology. Something he could update regularly, to show Q he could be dependable, rather than something he updated whenever the mood took him as he did with the app. A format that Q would be intimately familiar with, to show Q that he wasn’t a complete stranger in Q’s territory. Something that he could nonetheless experiment with, because god knew he’d get bored if he couldn’t. 

And most importantly, something doable. Something relatively fast. 

Oh God. He knew what he had to do. 

‘How to start a blog,’ Bond typed into his browser search bar, and consulted the relevant WikiHow link. 

Now: Blogspot, Tumblr, or Wordpress?

*** 

Bond had three hobbies outside of his work: fashion, food, and cars. (And golf, but not even he wanted to read pages and pages of a golf blog.) He set up sections for all three of them, figuring he’d find out what he most liked to ‘blog’ about as he went along. Then he stared at the blank page of his first ‘blog post.’ 

Right. Blogging. He had written hundreds of after-action reports, surely he could write a nice little photo-laden essay detailing exactly how he felt about Tom Ford’s newest offering. He put his fingers on the keyboard. 

...Fuck, writing was a bit difficult, wasn’t it? 

Right. First sentence was the hardest: _Tom Ford’s spring/summer 2017 menswear collection lives up to the high standards set in previous years…_ Bond stopped. He was already bored. 

_Tom Ford’s spring/summer 2017 menswear collection is fucking stunning._

Better. And he was never allowed to say ‘fucking’ in his official field reports. Bond grinned. Maybe he could get used to this. 

Two hours later, he looked up from his computer screen when his stomach started growling; once the usual fidgeting and discomfort with being trapped at a desk had passed, he had hardly even noticed the time passing. Somewhere in between zooming in on pictures of his favorite suits, searching a thesaurus for the precise vocabulary word he wanted, and allowing himself a slight digression on his own personal history with Tom Ford’s designer suits...somehow, while performing this business of blog-writing, he had begun to enjoy himself. 

Bond clicked ‘post’ with a sense of satisfaction. Would anyone actually read this? Probably not—Christ, Bond almost hoped not, almost as much as he hoped someone would. 

But in any case, it was there. He had made something. And tomorrow he’d make one about food, and after that he’d make one about cars, and then he’d really be cooking with gas. 

James Bond, with a license to blog. 

Now all he had to do was rack up a non-pathetic amount of posts, including some of the godforsaken fashion labels Q was interested in, and get up the guts to ‘come off anon’ with Q. 

...Maybe he could do that in a few months. (Maybe never.) (No, he would do it. Probably.) 

In lieu of stressing about what Q might one day make of foodfashionfuckingvehicles.tumblr.com, Bond opened up his recording program to make another audio clip. If he created a backlog, he could program them to disperse once a day while he was on missions. 

“Good evening, bespectacled beauty,” he said. “It’s a gorgeous day here in the past, and I’m thinking about suits. I got my first suit when I was ten; it was the first time my parents let me go to a really formal party with them instead of staying with Kincade. I hated being measured, of course, and how tight the tie was around my neck, but I liked being able to steal all the best hors d'oeuvres.” 

Bond paused to let the memory of what he considered his first _real_ suit—the suit Vesper had got him, the suit he’d lost and won and flirted in, the suit he’d had sliced off his body before his torture—flow through him. Then he took a breath and continued. “When did you get your first real suit? Or perhaps it hasn’t happened yet,” he teased. 

Actually, he’d give a lot to see Q in a tux. Perhaps with some persuasion—or perhaps Q wouldn’t need much persuasion at all. After all, Six’s annual political schmooze fest was coming up in a few weeks, and Bond happened to know that he and Q both had to put in an appearance. If Q wasn’t already going blacktie, surely it wouldn’t be difficult to convince him to. 

The question was, would Q go traditional? Modern? Black? White? Bond had seen Q’s nerd chic suits, of course, but blacktie was a different game of couture altogether. 

...Maybe he could do a few blog posts about tuxedos next. 

***

The thing about recipe blogs, Bond found after an evening spent drinking and doing serious food blog research, was that he hated approximately seventy percent of them. 

Who the hell wanted to read three pages of twaddle about someone’s trip to the farmer’s market before getting to the recipe? Why the fuck would someone post pictures of their toddler’s frosting-smeared face as an endorsement of their cake, as if two-year-olds could tell the difference between ASDA’s palm-oil-adulterated cupcakes and ones made with actual churned-from-a-bloody-cow’s-milk butter? Who were the camo-wearing twats who described the minutest details of their wild boar hunting trip and then summed up the actual cooking process of their hard-won pork in a single, damningly vague paragraph? He hoped they’d all got trichinosis. 

Bond didn’t consider himself a cooking expert; he left that to the Michelin-starred professionals. However, he did all right for himself. And certainly he could do a clearer write-up than at least half of these faux-gourmet pricks. 

_How to make scrambled eggs_ was his first post, mainly because he happened to want to eat some for dinner. He included step-by-step pictures, something he’d found useful in the cooking blogs that weren’t terrible, and made sure to add in helpful advice such as ‘You’re going to want to turn the heat up. Don’t turn the heat up. These eggs are worth waiting for’ and ‘Chop your chives finely—there’s nothing worse than great big chunks of chive sticking out like boulders in the middle of your silky smooth eggs.’ 

Not a bad first post at all! Simple instructions. Clear pictures, thanks to the high-tech camera in his Q Branch-issued mobile. Certainly none of that irritating waffling about. 

Bond’s scrambled eggs were seasoned with a feeling of accomplishment that night. 

The problem was that scrambled eggs didn’t transport very well. He could make them for Q when Q visited, but he shuddered to think of Q trying to reheat them in the office microwave. And as long as he was going to have a cooking blog, shouldn’t he indulge in the traditional courtship ritual of gifting Q with some kind of homemade confection? Too right he should. But what could he—

Of course. Q had told him one of his favorite flavors practically the moment they’d met. Something with Earl Grey… 

A memory from Bond’s childhood rose from the depths: the scent of dry tea leaves, the weight of his mother’s hand on his shoulder, the laugh in her voice as she said, “Keep whisking, darling!” while he panted with exertion, certain that his arm was going to fall off at the elbow before the butter and the sugar were properly creamed together. 

(Could one over-cream butter and sugar? Retroactively, Bond found it a little suspicious that no matter how energetic he’d been when they’d started making cookies, creaming the butter and the sugar always seemed to take just long enough to tire him…) 

He checked with the Internet to make sure of his recipe; luckily, his mother hadn’t had a monopoly on it. The only problem was that Bond was nearly out of butter, didn’t have any flour, and certainly didn’t have any of that godforsaken tea. Moreover, it was 21:00, so all of the supermarkets would be closed. 

All of them except two, and Bond certainly wasn’t going to venture into the Waltons’ monstrosity on Old Kent Road. It would have to be Sainsbury’s, and he’d have to head out now, because it closed at 22:00. 

He _could_ wait for tomorrow morning, but then he would always carry the knowledge that he’d just gone to bed instead of getting up and venturing into the wilds of his local open-to-midnight supercentre like a man. Besides, tomorrow was Monday, and he was certain that Q would appreciate a sweet interruption at the start of his workweek. 

Right. Things to do: 

1\. Purchase the right ingredients, including butter, sugar, and Q’s much-loved (and Bond’s much-loathed) Earl Grey 

2\. Attempt to bake 

3\. Somehow, in the attempted baking, manage to create a tea-flavored masterpiece, or at least something in the ‘tasty’ category of foodstuffs. 

Not the easiest mission he had ever carried out, but Bond wasn’t one to shrink at signs of difficulty. He took a sip of liquid courage, fetched the keys to the Jag—his latest, somewhat characterless rental—and got underway. 

***

“Of course it was closed, Sainsbury’s is only open until five on Sunday!” Moneypenny said. 

“As everyone knows,” Bond said dryly. 

“Everyone who works late and buys their own Sunday roast,” Moneypenny said. “So where did you end up going? Not…” Her eyes shone with glee; she’d already figured out what his only other option would have been. 

“Yes,” Bond said solemnly. “ASDA.” He shuddered. The Walmart corporation may have gotten its grubby paws on the British grocery market, but that didn’t mean Bond had to like that fact any more than he liked their corner-cutting baked goods and deliberately circuitous store design. How had the butter and the sugar been on opposite ends of that enormous warehouse of a store? 

“Look at you, out doing your shopping like a real boy,” Moneypenny said, grinning. “Come on, then, let’s see the fruits of your labors.” She gestured at the small black case Bond had set on her desk. It was one that Q had given him. Bond had taken the foam container for the gun and the radio out of it, lined it with a handkerchief, and deemed it a successful biscuit box. 

“Only if you’re honest,” Bond said. The aroma of tea wafted through the air as he opened the case and handed her two shortbread biscuits like round gold coins. 

Moneypenny winked at him. “Don’t worry—I won’t let you inflict your creations on anyone if they’re terrible.” 

This was really why Bond had dropped by to see her as soon as he’d made it into the office, aside from the charm of her company; he hated tea himself, which made it difficult to tell if the biscuits were any good or not. They seemed to be the right texture, and they didn’t look burnt, but… 

“Mrrph, horrible,” Moneypenny pronounced, swallowing audibly. Then she stuffed the second biscuit into her mouth and reached for the case. “Give it here, Q definitely won’t like these…” Her eyes twinkled at him. 

“Well, I can’t very well inflict them on you, then, can I?” Bond asked, tugging the case out of her reach with a smirk. “And who said anything about Q?” 

“Are you dating some other boffin who likes Earl Grey?” she asked. 

Bond glared a little, but was inwardly pleased. “ _If_ I were dating a boffin who happened to like Earl Grey, then I would say that it hasn’t got very far. Yet,” he said.

“But?” Moneypenny asked, leaning forward. 

“But,” Bond said, daring to let a smile cross his face, “I would also say that I think it might be going well.”

“I’ll bet Q thinks so too after he tastes those,” Moneypenny said. “You know, I didn’t think you had a domestic bone in your body.”

“Well, old dogs know where all the old bones are buried, and I managed to dig up a domestic one,” Bond said. “What about you? Any rebounds since…?” Bond knew perfectly well what the tosser’s name had been—he’d gone round and made off with all of his bog rolls, batteries, and charging cords after Moneypenny had dumped him—but he wasn’t about to sully Moneypenny’s breathing space with it. 

To his surprise, Moneypenny smiled, and even—yes, that was a tiny flush on her face! 

“It’s a little silly,” Moneypenny said, “but it seems I have a secret admirer. And not one who needs information while he’s getting up to things he shouldn’t in the field!” She eyed him. 

“I admire you openly,” Bond protested. “Except for your aim. And as for getting up to things—getting up just happens sometimes, doesn’t it?” 

“What, like digging up an old bone?” Moneypenny teased. 

“It’s a very sturdy old bone,” Bond said with dignity. “Anyway, what have they sent you?” 

Moneypenny took a sleek walnut box out of her desk. “It’s a wax sealing kit,” she said, and indeed it was: thick, expensive parchment; beads of red wax collected in a little glass bottle; a brass melting spoon; and, of course, the wax seal stamp with its polished wooden handle and shiny brass die. 

“Any note?” Bond asked. 

“Of course,” Moneypenny said. She showed him a piece of the same parchment, which was sealed with yellow wax and a badger stamp; although the seal was broken, she gave no hint as to the contents. 

“A romantic badger,” Bond mused. “Hmm. And what shape is yours?” He looked at the stamp in the kit, the face of which was flush against the box everything had come in. 

“Maybe I’ll send you a little note and you’ll find out,” Moneypenny said with a mysterious smile. “Go on now, go show off your biscuits.”

“After lunch,” Bond said. “And don’t give Q any hints!” 

***

Despite the biscuits taunting him from their case, after talking with Moneypenny Bond spent the first half of his day working on the endless memorization of new espionage facts and figures that crossed the double-ohs’ desks, the sometimes useful and sometimes outdated intel that he had to burn into his brain because what if, what if, what if? 

One never knew which facts would be life-saving, which drug smuggling methods or underworld tattoos would be important to know. (Like the Macau slave trade—an image of Severine’s kohl-lined eyes flashed up at him for a moment before he shook it away.) 

At precisely eleven, he dropped about as much paperwork as was expected of him—which wasn’t much, given his careful tendency not to be too good at it—into his out tray for Loelia Ponsonby, the long-suffering 00 secretary. 

Ponsonby was a full-figured woman who never wore the same nail polish color two days in a row and never failed to clear her throat and raise a catty pair of eyebrows if one of them tried to leave without at least filing _something_. Despite this non-negotiable limit, Bond knew for certain that she kept a list of incredibly short briefs in reserve for them, for when they were having a bad day, and more than once she’d alerted him to an invaluable bit of gossip just in time to keep him from blundering into a social faux-pas. She’d also lasted eight months with them, which was three months longer than anyone else. 

The 00 secretary position was normally a bit of a double-edged sword, a fast-track to either promotion or resignation. Ponsonby was on the promotion track. Specifically, she was training to take the cryptography test, and since Bond’s archaic paper forms would have to be digitized by her anyway, he often wrote them in cipher for her. 

Before Bond’s papers even had time to settle into the out tray, Ponsonby whisked them out and into a folder. She would dutifully mark the files he had finished off of his ‘to read’ list, and they would vanish from his intel documents to be replaced by something else. 

If Bond had let himself, he could have become like the over-studious 008, a Sisyphus drowning under a never-ending slog of briefings. 

Instead he put in his time and then skived off, sometimes to physical training sessions, usually to wherever the hell he liked. He’d be free and clear this afternoon—to go to Q’s if Q invited him, or to try his hand at baking something else, or perhaps to drown his sorrows in expensive Scotch if the worst case scenario happened and Q thought the biscuits were so terrible that he assumed Bond was actively attempting to poison him. 

Maybe he should ask Ponsonby to try a biscuit, just in case. 

Ponsonby traced the edge of Bond’s folder with one midnight blue fingernail. On top of the blue polish, she’d painted a golden dash-dot-dot-dot—the Morse letter B. The letters A through J were on the other nails. “Got something new for me?” she asked him. 

“I do, but it will infuriate you,” Bond said honestly. He’d given her a bifid cipher, which were always tricky beasts to crack by hand; but she’d agreed to work on the “old school” methods with him, and he’d know if she used a simulated annealing algorithm to do the work for her. 

Ponsonby smirked. “You, infuriating?” she said. “Shocking. And who will you be infuriating for the afternoon?” 

Bond popped open his biscuit case and said, “Try one of these.” He handed her one. 

Ponsonby took a cautious bite of her biscuit. “Mmm! That’s good. Is that some kind of tea in there?” 

“Earl Grey,” Bond said, pleased. “And it looks like infuriation might be off the menu for today.” 

***

The biscuits went over beautifully. Q’s mouth dropped open with surprise when Bond presented them behind the safely closed door of his office, and then he shot Bond a very narrow-eyed look, bless his suspicious little soul. But those wary green eyes dropped shut at the very first bite of Earl Grey-flavored shortbread, and Q hummed with pleasure, swallowed, and—best of all—reached for another one. 

“You made these?” Q asked. 

“I did,” Bond said, faux-casual. “Been doing a bit of cooking, thought you might make a good guinea pig.” 

“They’re not bad at all,” Q said, obviously trying to sound just as casual as Bond had been but unable to keep his mouth from pulling up at the corners. He was gripping the handle of Bond’s makeshift biscuit tin, as if to keep Bond from taking it away. Probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. 

Bond’s fingers tingled and his chest felt tight, but he was pretty sure it was just a fit of emotion, not a heart attack. 

He’d made something and Q had liked it. It was just—it was fucking shortbread, not like a Michelin-starred meal or anything. 

But he’d made it. He had fetched the butter and the sugar and combined them with the tea and the flour and the salt. He had rolled the dough into logs and waited for them to get cold in the refrigerator. He had sliced the round biscuits off the logs, taking care to make each one even, because he knew that Q appreciated precision, and because he’d wanted these biscuits to look good for Q. He had even peered anxiously into the oven like some kind of neurotic Bake-Off contestant, trying to find that perfect shade of doneness. 

And Q had liked it. 

In fact, Q was in the middle of saying something that ended with “come back to mine tonight.” 

Bond vaguely registered that there had been some kind of ‘eating’ innuendo in Q’s sentence, but he didn’t have to attempt a witty reply because Q was already pulling him into a kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the recipes in this chapter (scrambled eggs and shortbread) here: http://beaubete.tumblr.com/post/159459372252/the-only-acceptable-use-for-choppedpowdered-tea. They were originally posted by @beaubete for the MI6 Cafe Recipe Exchange, and then I couldn't resist the idea of Bond making tea-flavored shortbread for Q!


	5. Handwarmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond continues his courtship efforts and his food blog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to timetospy and roseforthethorns for the beta! You rock <3

With Q’s positive reinforcement spurring him on, continuing the food blog naturally took priority in Bond’s plan to prove that he wasn’t the most unreliable sack of gadget-losing shit ever expelled from Q Branch’s corridors. 

Bond barred himself from mentioning Q while he wrote it—he refused to become one of those sickening blogs that constantly talked about the cook’s OH, or Other Half. However, even though he couldn’t brag about the fact that his biscuits had got him laid, there was something satisfying about getting all of the steps written down with his own photographs accompanying them.

Not only had he made biscuits that were apparently “delicious, they’re fucking delicious, okay, I admit it, now just—just—aaaahh fuck, yes, there!”, but he had also made a _blog_ about them. 

(“It’s not science unless you write it down,” he’d heard Q say to more than one of his staff.) 

And he’d even got a few reblogs! Apparently people other than Q liked Earl Grey. Bond grinned at the idea of people admiring the photos of his biscuits, unaware that the marvelously clear definition was because Bond had put the spy-grade camera on his Q-Branch-issued mobile to a more domestic purpose. 

Emboldened by his success, Bond found himself Googling a recipe for something a little more complicated: Earl Grey cheesecake. 

He perused the recipe. He’d have to buy a springform pan, but the directions didn’t look as difficult as he’d expected; wasn’t cheesecake supposed to be tricky to make? Apparently not: “This might take a while in the oven, but it is one of the easiest dessert recipes in the world!” the recipe promised. 

Well, why the hell not. He’d managed the shortbread, hadn’t he? 

*** 

“What is it this time?” Moneypenny asked, leaning over her desk to peer at the covered platter Bond was holding. “Earl Grey muffins?” 

“It was supposed to be Earl Grey cheesecake,” Bond said glumly, and he lifted the cover to reveal a cheesecake that looked to have suffered some sort of seismic event. “You can have this one if you like it. Thought I should ask if the taste was as off as the bake before I tried again.” 

Moneypenny picked up the spoon he’d set on the platter and lifted a small bite of cheesecake into her mouth. She closed her eyes and made a show of humming thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I’ll have to confiscate this for further testing,” she said, pulling the entire cheesecake across her desk. 

As she did, Bond clocked a heavy piece of cream-colored paper on her desk, a hint of golden yellow sealing wax peeking out from beneath the file it had been shoved under. “Cheesecake and a love note,” he commented, smirking. “It’s a good morning for you, Moneypenny. Do you know who to write back to yet?” 

“A good morning for gifts with catches,” Moneypenny said. “Your cheesecake is in pieces, and I have yet to figure out what my love note actually says.” 

She pulled the note from under the file and showed it to him. The yellow wax was once again stamped with a stylized badger. On the inside of the note was what appeared from the spacing of the paragraphs to be a letter, written in cipher, with a heart shape drawn down at the bottom next to what seemed to be the encrypted signature. 

“It was on my desk this morning. And I haven’t done much cryptography since training,” Moneypenny admitted, “so I haven’t cracked it yet.” 

Bond recognized the handwriting from verifying a few dozen cipher solutions. He smiled. “My secretary, Loelia Ponsonby; she’s training to take the crypto exams,” he said. “I’m sure she’d be glad to help translate if you want some discrete assistance. Particularly if you share some of your new cheesecake.” 

***

Bond put the cheesecake idea on hold after that, resolving to learn more about them before trying his hand at it again. Instead of another dessert, he would attempt a more savory form of culinary courtship: a version of Q’s favorite Chinese take-away dish, orange chicken with stir-fried broccoli and jasmine rice on the side. Bond had made a few stir fries in his time, so he hoped that this, unlike the cheesecake, would be as easy as the shortbread had been. 

It was not as easy as the shortbread had been. 

The deep-frying technique took a bit of perfecting: it was important to get the oil hot enough, and keep it hot, or the chicken would turn into greasy unappetizing lumps instead of crispy nuggets of deliciousness. (Bond briefly considered calling Felix for advice. Surely a man from Texas would know how to deep fry things? Then he considered how much Felix would laugh and resolved to muddle through on his own.) 

To add insult to injury, after Bond had the chicken perfected, his first attempt at the broccoli turned out too soggy, a side-effect of adding so much sauce that the broccoli ended up boiling instead of frying. Bloody vegetables. 

Pictures of his failures were the first ones Bond uploaded to his new recipe post. “WHAT NOT TO DO” he wrote in bold letters, and detailed where he’d gone wrong; surely there were people other than him who could use a helpful hints section. 

The sauce, at least, turned out to be foolproof, and Bond had long ago mastered the art of cooking jasmine rice. 

In the end, he had a perfect plate of crispy, golden bites of chicken, bright green spears of broccoli with just the right amount of crunch, aromatic jasmine rice that was neither too dry nor too wet, and a thick, spicy orange sauce that glistened beautifully in the photos. His kitchen smelled gorgeous, redolent of ginger, garlic, and fresh-squeezed oranges. 

Unlike Earl Grey tea, Bond had nothing against orange chicken, and when he helped himself to a bowlful of his homemade take-away, he had to admit that it was pretty fucking good. Not gourmet, of course, but better by far than the fare from the cheap place right next to Six that Q usually ordered from, whose virtues tended to lie in quantity rather than quality. The orange sauce in particular was fantastic, well worth the effort of squeezing all of those oranges. 

It was past ten at night when he finished cooking, but Q was working the night shift, so Bond drove down with a covered plate and an optimistic Tupperware full of leftovers in case Q wanted something for lunch the next day as well. As he was parking the car, his mobile pinged with a text. 

_Come over for breakfast? I’ll be off work by nine. There’s a package on my doorstep, the contents of which I think we’ll both enjoy._

Holy shit. Had Q bought a sex toy? They hadn’t done any of that yet—a bit surprising, really, since Q seemed like the type to employ the marvels of human engineering in all aspects of his life. 

Or maybe this was Q deciding to bring Bond further into his sphere of nerdiness. Had Q bought a video game that he thought Bond would like? Or a—whatever else boffins did in their spare time. Playing… weird card games? Something called Dungeons and Dragons was a thing, wasn’t it? Could you play Dungeons and Dragons with just two people? 

No, surely Q was talking about a sex thing. 

Bond glanced down at the carefully wrapped dinner plate sitting in the passenger seat of his rented Jaguar XE. No matter what was in Q’s package, Q had clearly thought about Bond in his free time, had seen something online and thought he’d like it, and had taken the initiative to share it with him. 

Just like Bond had when he’d seen the orange chicken recipe. 

Double-ohs were far too dignified to wriggle in their seats with happiness, but Bond refused to conceal the extra bounce in his step as he got out of the car and headed down to Q Branch. He was a lucky man, and he didn’t care who knew it. 

***

Bond got the call from Moneypenny an hour before his alarm was set to go off, only a few days after that lovely morning when he’d stuffed Q so full of orange chicken that they’d had to have a nap before taking Q’s new toy for a test drive. 

M would likely be sending him out today, Eve said. She wasn’t sure about any details, or—more likely—she couldn’t give him any on the phone. 

It had been a while. Everything in Bond yearned for the feel of the Walther in his hand, the adrenaline in his veins, the accomplishment of a difficult task performed well. He was M’s hound, and hounds were meant for chasing—and killing. 

But he was also a blogger now—Q’s blogger, though Q didn’t know it yet—and he was trying to be consistent, so he spent the hours before work whipping up as many of his simplest recipes as he could, click-click-click with the photos and rush-rush-rush to get the food cooked and packed up for the office. He could write the posts up on the plane and schedule them to go live every two or three days, depending on the mission’s projected timeline. 

The contents of Bond’s fridge had never been so thoroughly used up before a mission. Moneypenny got a quick quiche and a basket of lemon-flavored madeleines before Bond’s briefing with M; Bond happened to know that Ponsonby liked French desserts and he had also happened to have citrus to use up. Tanner received a sausage-and-cheddar omelet, a tin of lime-flavored shortbread, and a promise to make up the golf game they’d scheduled for this weekend. 

And after his briefing, Bond wandered down to Q Branch and traded Q a leftover-Thai-food frittata and a tin of blueberry clafoutis in exchange for his Walther and radio. “No extras?” Bond asked, eyebrows quirking. “When are you going to send me out with that car?” 

“Maybe when it’s finished, 007,” Q said crisply. “Or when you aren’t on a mission to Arctic terrain for which local vehicles are far better suited.” 

Right. Canada. With his luck, he’d probably end up riding a caribou. Bond grimaced. “At least I’ll have thoughts of you to keep me warm,” he said. 

Q ignored Bond’s cliche except for a brief look askance. “On that note,” he said, “it’s not a car, but I have this for you.” He pulled what looked like a small, black and red, technological brick out of his jacket pocket and thrust it in Bond’s direction. 

Bond took it. He tilted his head at Q. 

“It’s a hand warmer,” Q said. 

“Does it...do anything?” Bond asked. 

“It charges your phone,” Q said, looking vaguely embarrassed. “And there’s a flashlight. In addition to, er, hand-warming.” 

Bond smirked; Q could warm his hands any day. Then he examined the device. Unlike most of Q Branch’s tech, this had a brand name on it: Kozy Xcel. The brick was, it dawned on Bond, not Q Branch tech at all, but something Q must have bought, perhaps on his way to work. 

Except Q had come in for the early shift this morning, and the shops wouldn’t have been open. No, Q must have heard about Bond’s mission and rummaged around in his closet—Bond pictured a big box full of winter gear—and pulled this out specifically to give to him. 

“Wouldn’t want your trigger finger to freeze up,” Q said, shrugging. 

“Glad to have something to hold onto while your hand is in England,” Bond replied, winking, and he left with a lighter heart. 

On the aeroplane, he finished his blog posts, and then he prepared to tuck his feelings for Q away deep inside of him, like the hand warmer tucked into the pocket of his coat, useful when needed but otherwise irrelevant to the task at hand. 

As he did so, he thought of how pleased Q might be to get the audio updates on what Bond thought of as the Q-app while Bond was gone. Q didn’t have to avoid thinking about Bond, after all. What would he think of the suit anecdote Bond had shared? 

Then Bond closed his eyes and nearly swore aloud. He’d recorded the extra updates a couple of weeks ago, but he’d forgotten to upload them to the app, and he wouldn’t have access to them on mission. Shit. What good was bloody technology when he forgot to use it properly? 

Well, he could make at least one update to the app from the field… probably. And it wasn’t as if Q hearing about his first suit and all that couldn’t wait until whatever mission came after this one, right? 

Right. Maybe Bond could even share the blog when he got back, too. But that was something he could think about later, not now. Now he had a job to do. 

Bond took a deep breath. The plane began to move. 

007 opened his eyes. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [〔授權翻譯〕The Trick is Slick Code](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11386245) by [conejodejulio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/conejodejulio/pseuds/conejodejulio)




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